


Difference

by Aurya



Category: Sword Art Online
Genre: Canon Divergence - Mother's Rosario, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:29:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22315609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aurya/pseuds/Aurya
Summary: The smallest change can make the biggest difference - to the people it affects.
Relationships: Kirigaya Kazuto/Yuuki Asuna
Comments: 36
Kudos: 81





	1. Plan of Defiance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not gonna lie, I was kind of surprised to discover that Asuna's mom had a tag on AO3 that was marked as common so I could filter on it.
> 
> So, a good while ago, I came across a... 'fan work'... for SAO that started off with "Agil gets a picture from an ALO player of someone who looks suspiciously like Asuna, and decides -not- to tell Kirito because he doesn't want to get his hopes up". Small little change in events, huge impact on the course of the story. Except that the work was the sort of thing where events like that are just meant to enable what they actually want to have happen, so the huge impact didn't have much to do with the work itself.  
> To quote Gabriel Iglesias: "Take your time! You'll figure it out..."
> 
> Anyways, my second or third time watching the anime, I had a similar train of thought in regards to an event that happened during Mother's Rosario. Asuna is inspired to help Kyouko see things her way via a comment of Yuuki's that very easily could not have inspired her as such. If it doesn't, what might happen instead?
> 
> This is gonna start off unpleasant, and I apologize for that, but I'm going to do my damnedest to make sure it doesn't end unpleasantly. And because it's already going to start off unpleasant, I don't want to go through Yuuki's final days. This is going to begin some time after the memorial service. Let's take some liberties with the timeframe of Asuna's school transfer and everything.

"Asuna?"

The comment snapped Asuna out of her haze; she looked up from her textbook, finding Kazuto staring down at her worriedly. "Oh, Kirito," she murmured. "What is it?"

"That's what I want to know," Kazuto replied, sitting down next to her. "Is something wrong?"

"...Is it that obvious?" Asuna asked.

Kazuto shook his head. "Not at a glance," he admitted. "But you've been staring at your textbook for the past thirty minutes, during lunch break, without writing anything or turning the page..." He angled the page to get a better look at it and added, "...and we wrapped up this chapter last week."

Asuna sighed as he closed the textbook. "So much for looking inconspicuous."

"...Is it about Yuuki?" Kazuto asked.

"No," Asuna replied. "It's about my mother."

"You mentioned she was trying to curtail your AmuSphere use," Kazuto recalled.

"It's not just that," Asuna explained. "She's trying to transfer me out of this school. She doesn't want me associating with SAO survivors."

"You **are** a SAO survivor," Kazuto pointed out.

Asuna nodded. "And I've tried to explain that to her, but she's not listening. She won't listen to anything I have to say in defense of VR, or the school, or _you_. She's trying to... control me. I just... don't want to lose everything I have with everyone."

"I don't know what to tell you," Kazuto admitted. "I mean... I don't suppose we'd be able to help much."

"No, I don't think you would," Asuna agreed. "I..." She closed her eyes. "I have an idea for how to get her to listen to me... but I don't know if it's a good idea."

Kazuto set his hand over hers. "Let me hear it," he requested.

"...Do you still have your old NervGear?"

* * *

"Asuna? Are you still up here?"

Kyouko hadn't been surprised for Asuna's tardiness, but she was disappointed. "It's time for dinner. I've told you to be more punctual." The bedroom door was cracked open, so it couldn't be simply that her room was too insulated. "You'd better not be using that device again," she warned as she made to open the door, "or I'm going to-"

She cut herself off as she stepped in - and nearly screamed loudly enough to wake the city.

Asuna was not using her AmuSphere; in fact, it was sitting on her desk, unplugged with the cord pooled around it as a proclamation. But she **was** wearing a VR gaming device - a larger, bulkier device that Kyouko had hoped she would never see again. It looked like a helmet, with a visor that she knew from experience could be retracted into the body of the device - and whose absence did nothing to affect its functionality, as Kyouko knew all too well. Its power cord was plugged into the wall, but that, too, she knew could be undone without stopping its functionality. Three lights, more prominent than those of the AmuSphere, rested on the left side of the visor, and upon the forehead was the logo.

NVG \- _NervGear_

Terror flooded Kyouko's senses as she looked at her daughter lying there; she didn't understand, _couldn't_ understand why or how Asuna was wearing a NervGear again. After a long moment, her gaze drifted towards the AmuSphere lying on the desk - and she saw two folds of paper lying next to it. One was the operator's manual for the device, folded open so it would remain on a particular page; the other was a handwritten note, and Kyouko stepped forward to find it addressed to her.

_Mother;  
If you're reading this, you've come to my room because I didn't come to dinner by the exact minute you expected me to. Which means you've most likely found me lying in bed, with a NervGear on my head. I'm sure I don't need to remind you what happened to the players of Sword Art Online whose families tried to forcibly remove their NervGears while they were playing._

News articles flashed in Kyouko's mind; horror stories made real about people whose brains had been fried by the devices, when people were trying to save them from that very fate.

_If I haven't been interrupted, I'm going to log out of ALfheim Online one hour after I've logged in. If you haven't come to my room intending to lecture me by that time, you'll never see this note. I've made sure I'm not in the middle of anything during that time, so I won't take long to log out if you interrupt me. If you do, we'll speak when I log out - not a moment before.  
Asuna_

There was a noticeable gap between the signature and the post scriptum, as though it had been added hurriedly at the last minute.

_P.S. - I don't know for sure whether the NervGear is designed to notify me if someone tries to get my attention the way they would with an AmuSphere. If you touch my shoulder or speak to me, and I haven't logged out in five minutes, the notification hasn't appeared. My AmuSphere is set to automatically log in to my secondary ALO account, where I've left instructions for how to contact me in-game._

Kyouko glanced at the manual to find it was open to the usage instructions; then she turned back to Asuna. After a long moment, she drew out the seat at the desk and sat down in it, taking deep breaths in a vain effort to calm herself down.

At least thirty minutes passed; rain had started to fall outside when Asuna began to stir. Kyouko started as her hand shifted, reaching for her head, and the visor was retracted before she sat up. Kyouko breathed a sigh of relief, drawing Asuna's attention, and silence filled the room for a moment.

"...Did you try to notify me?" Asuna asked.

"N-No." Kyouko's voice had an edge of fear to it that she quickly tried to rein in. "I just... called to you from outside the door before I came in."

Asuna nodded. "I see. That wouldn't trigger a notification on an AmuSphere either."

Kyouko's gaze fell, remembering how often she'd done that before. "No, it wouldn't."

Asuna swung her legs off the side of the bed. "So," she asked, "are you ready to listen to me?"

"What?" Kyouko turned to her. "What are you saying?"

"You've only been talking to me," Asuna observed, "never listening to what I have to say, and expecting me to just agree with you." She reached up to the NervGear and disconnected the power cord before leaning down to the outlet to unplug it. "You've been giving me less and less freedom, ever since I woke up from Sword Art Online." Her tone was gradually growing angrier. "You've been trying to control every part of my life. What I do, where I go, who I spend my time with."

"I am your mother," Kyouko proclaimed.

"And I am not your _item!_ " Asuna yelled abruptly. "I am my own person. I should be free to choose my own path. I should be allowed to be friends with who I want. I should be allowed to spend time with the people I like. I should be allowed to go where I want to go - in this world or any other."

"We had this conversation-" Kyouko began.

"No," Asuna interrupted. "You told me what you **wanted** me to do, and expected me to just agree, in spite of the fact that it flies in the face of everything I am."

Kyouko got to her feet. "Asuna-!"

"You refused to consider my desires," Asuna continued, "refused to consider what I want - what I hold dear."

"Stop," Kyouko reprimanded, "I'm not going to-!"

"If you're not willing to compromise," Asuna proclaimed, "then I'm not going to make you."

"What?!"

Asuna got to her feet. "I'm going to give you a choice," she informed her mother. "You can let me attend the SAO survivor's school, let me spend time with my friends in VR, let me date the boy I choose-"

Kyouko stepped forward. "I will _not-!_ "

" **Or,** " Asuna continued, heedless of Kyouko's ranting, "you can admit that you want a _puppet_ instead of a daughter, and I will cease to treat you as my mother."

A _smack_ echoed through the room.

The NervGear wasn't designed as defensive equipment, but there was enough cushioning on the interior that it still lessened the blow. Asuna registered the strike and was glad that it had landed on the side opposite the charging port; the NervGear had an internal battery, which would have made attempting to attack that side barehanded about as dangerous as slapping the wall where an outlet was mounted. Even still, Kyouko came off the worse for it; she recoiled with a gasp of pain, seizing her palm weakly.

Silence filled the room again, save for the falling rain outside.

"...But," Asuna observed, "I'm not going to judge you by what you do when you're angry." She knelt down, picking up something that Kyouko hadn't noticed when she walked in - a large bag, visibly packed full to bursting. "I'll let you make the decision when you're clear-headed." The NervGear's charging cord was set into the bag before Asuna hoisted it over her shoulder.

"You can find me at Kirito's place."

She started out of the bedroom, snapping Kyouko out of her haze.

"What-? Asuna!" She quickly followed her daughter out. "Asuna, listen to me!"

"Why should I?" Asuna argued. "You wouldn't listen to me."

She started down the stairs, and Kyouko quickly followed. "Asuna, get back here! Stop right now!" She was two paces from the door by now. "Put your bag down, or-!"

" _Or what!?_ "

Asuna seized something from the stand by the door as she whirled around - and Kyouko came to an abrupt halt as she realized her daughter was holding an umbrella. The fan was bound shut for easy storage, giving it a streamlined figure; the tip extended further than was probably necessary, giving it a threatening point, and Asuna was holding it by the shaft instead of a hook.

As a weapon.

Kyouko looked on in terror as Asuna glared at her. "With the AmuSphere - and the NervGear - you move your avatar just as you would move your real body. And what you experience in VR has just as much weight as what you experience in the real world. Sure, there's a stat difference. I don't think you or I could carry a metal weapon. But all you need is an approximation of what you're comfortable with to fight just as well."

She took one step, holding it closer, and Kyouko stepped back in fear. "And I spent two years comfortable wearing a _rapier_."

A moment of confrontation.

Then Asuna seized the front door, opening it wide as she turned away and stepped out. Kyouko shook her head in an effort to clear it as Asuna unbound the umbrella and spread the fan, raising it over her head before stepping into the rain.

"Asuna!" Kyouko dashed up to the front door, yelling after her. "Asuna, get back here! _Asuna!_ "

Her yells vanished into the storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick proclamation that my knowledge of SAO is limited exclusively to the anime Seasons I and II (and Alternative, which I don't think is in seasons yet). If I'm missing something, it was either brought up in the novels or happened in Ordinal Scale onward.
> 
> Also, I have no idea how long this is going to be, so if you're specifically looking for a quick read or a long story, you might want to look elsewhere until I've got this thing complete.


	2. Show of Decision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads-up, if you're reading this because you found my Christmas fic and wanted to see what else I'd written for SAO, this story and that story are going to be mutually exclusive. Certain elements in this one are in contradiction to elements in that one.

Asuna was halfway to Kazuto's house before she realized she'd forgotten her AmuSphere at home.

With a shake of her head, she continued walking; she certainly wasn't going home until her mother had cleared her head and made her decision. The rain didn't let up at any time during her walk, which owed a lot to why she was still wearing his NervGear when she got to the yard of the Kirigiya household; she didn't want to get the device wet, and didn't really trust herself to keep her umbrella balanced to stay dry while she was removing a helmet. Under the awning at the front door, she folded her umbrella and bound it, then set it against the door just long enough to take the device off her head; once she was done, she held it under her arm and hooked the umbrella over her wrist before seizing the doorknob.

It was unlocked, as she had been promised; and when she stepped inside, a familiar voice greeted her.

_"Welcome, Mama."_

Asuna blinked in surprise. "Wha...? Yui?" She glanced around the entryway; the lights were out from the late hour, and she wasn't sure where the voice was coming from. "Where...?"

 _"Here, Mama!"_ As Asuna's eyes adjusted, she saw what must have been the source; one of Kazuto's cameras was mounted on the wall opposite the door. _"Surprised?"_

"Y-Yeah," Asuna confirmed. A smile rose on her face as she closed the door behind her. "Did Kirito do this?"

 _"Mhm,"_ Yui confirmed. _"Papa set up a few different cameras around the house. I asked him to make sure one was here so I could greet you!"_

"Even though we were kind of hoping we wouldn't need to," a voice added from the stairway.

Asuna turned to find Kazuto stepping down. "Kirito!"

"I take it things didn't go so well?" Kazuto asked.

Asuna took a deep breath. "She... needs a bit to calm down," she insisted. "She'll come find me when she's ready."

Kazuto nodded. "I hope so." He stepped up to the front door and locked it before accepting the NervGear back. "Come on, I've set you up in my room."

* * *

The storm didn't end until everyone had gotten to sleep - which was probably why Asuna's phone didn't go off before the following morning, rousing her from her sleep. Kazuto had insisted she take the bed while he slept on the floor (so as to prevent one from waking the other if something were to get their attention too early, which made her feel stupid for having her ringer on); she quickly glanced at the display, and when she saw who was calling her, she quickly hit Ignore before turning her phone to silent.

A glance down at Kazuto revealed he had barely stirred; a smile rose on Asuna's face before she settled back into bed.

The unwelcome calls continued for the rest of the day, and all went unanswered. It took until the next afternoon before the household had a visitor; Suguha was in the yard in full kendo attire, running through some practices, when a vehicle pulled up and someone stepped out. Her swings came to a stop, and she glanced towards the new arrival to find she was dressed in business attire.

One good look was all it took for her to be sure this was Asuna's mother - not necessarily from her appearance showing family resemblance (although there were enough similarities to chalk the rest up to age), but from her demeanor matching what Asuna had described.

Giving her the benefit of the doubt, Suguha returned to her swings. Kyouko made to step into the yard, but stopped short when she saw the _shinai_ ; after a moment, she called out. "Excuse me."

Suguha halted in mid-motion, lowering her weapon and turning towards her.

Kyouko stepped forward. "Is this the Kirigaya residence?" she asked.

"Yes, it is," Suguha confirmed.

She didn't realize how much full attire disguised a kendo practitioner until Kyouko showed surprise at her voice. "I'm... sorry, are you-?"

"Oh, my bad." Suguha pulled off her _men_. "I'm Suguha Kirigaya."

"I see," Kyouko mused. She offered her hand. "Kyouko Yuuki." Suguha seized her _shinai_ by the blade so she could accept the handshake. "Is Asuna here?"

Suguha nodded. "Yes, she's inside having dinner with Kazuto." Asuna had told her to refer to him by name - and the reason promptly became clear when Kyouko's expression changed. "Come in."

Kyouko followed Suguha to the front door, letting her set down her equipment before stepping in. Her free hand made a strange motion as she opened the door that Kyouko chalked up to having been holding a _shinai_ for long enough for her fingers to be stiff; as she closed the door behind her, Kyouko noticed a dome camera mounted on the wall opposite the entrance.

The sounds of conversation from the kitchen were audible immediately. "...got to be exaggerating," Asuna mused. "I don't cook anything special."

"I think it's just the fact that you're cooking it yourself." A male voice that must have been Kazuto. "You're surrounded by the smell while you're preparing it, and you taste-test it before you serve. You don't get the chance to appreciate it as well as if it's served to you."

Suguha led the way to the kitchen; Asuna and Kazuto were at the sink, washing the dishes from dinner. "I don't know," Asuna insisted, "I don't think that's got anything to do with it."

"Alright," Kazuto insisted, "but I better not be on the other side of this conversation tomorrow."

Asuna giggled, and Suguha quickly spoke up to get their attention. "Asuna, onii-chan." The two raised their gazes as she stepped in. "We have a visitor."

As Kyouko entered, Asuna's face promptly fell. Kazuto decided to act civil; he quickly dried his hands and made to approach her. "Pleasure to meet you," he greeted. "Kazuto Kirigiya."

He offered his hand, although the visitor didn't accept it. "Kyouko Yuuki," she returned. "So, you're 'Kirito'?"

"Yeah," Kazuto confirmed, "if you prefer." Kyouko's expression made it abundantly clear that she did _not_ prefer, and he lowered his hand on realizing she wouldn't shake it.

Suguha cleared her throat to get his attention. "I'm gonna get back to my practice," she told them; when Kazuto nodded in acknowledgement, she made to step out.

"Have a seat," Kazuto prompted. "Can I get you a drink, something to eat?"

"That won't be necessary," Kyouko insisted. "I'm just here to collect my daughter."

"Well, there's still a conversation to be had," Kazuto mused. "It would be rude of me not to treat you as a guest until you're done discussing."

"I'm sorry," Kyouko reprimanded, "you must be mistaken. There's nothing to discuss. My daughter came here to visit a friend, and was expected home yesterday. Since she's refused to answer her phone, I've come to pick her up in person."

Asuna spoke up at this point. "If you're expecting me to come with you," she said firmly, "then that means you've come to a decision."

Kyouko turned to her. "Tell me you didn't seriously think your-"

"I gave you a choice, mother," Asuna proclaimed. "Are you going to try and force your reality on me, or are you going to treat me as your daughter?"

"You **are** my daughter," Kyouko retorted, "and you will _listen_ to me."

Asuna stepped forward. "Children are not things that belong to their parents," she reprimanded. "If you expect me to listen to you, then you intend to listen to me."

Kyouko's hand moved forward, seizing Asuna by the wrist. "We're **going** , Asuna."

"Mother-"

Kazuto made to step forward as Asuna was dragged along by Kyouko's grip. "We're going home," she said firmly. "You're coming with me."

"Mother, let _go_ of me!" Asuna yelled. "You can't expect me to-!"

"I can and I am," Kyouko proclaimed. "I'm not going to tolerate you behaving like this any..."

The door was opened - and once again did Kyouko find herself at swordpoint. Suguha was standing there, still in full kendo attire (sans _men_ ); her _shinai_ was held in both hands, and she was standing stalwart, barring Kyouko's way. Her mother's surprise gave Asuna the opportunity, wrenching her hand free.

"I'm sorry," Suguha pleaded, "but I can't tolerate a guest treating another guest this way under my roof." She took a step to the left. "Come outside, please."

Kyouko knew better than to assume she could brute-force her way past a kendo practitioner; slowly, she made to step out, and Suguha moved her _shinai_ aside as she passed.

Suguha turned inside, where Asuna and Kazuto were standing side by side. "Do you _want_ to leave?"

"Asuna, _come along_." Kyouko's tone didn't have nearly as much authority as she wanted it to.

Asuna took a deep breath before taking Kazuto's hand; and his fingers interlocked with hers as she raised her gaze to her mother.

"...Good day, Kyouko."

She seized the door and closed it, and Suguha turned her _shinai_ back towards Kyouko as she stood there, furious. After a long moment, she stormed off, and Suguha took a deep breath, glancing towards the door.

Asuna's sobs could be heard from inside, and Suguha decided she'd better resume her practice. 

* * *

The following days found Kyouko's every attempt to approach Asuna hindered. Trying to reach her by phone continued to prove futile, with texts going ignored and calls getting cut off in mid-ring. Attempts to intercept her on her way home from school discovered that Suguha had a habit of picking up her brother after school - with her kendo equipment at the ready. And trying to visit the Kirigiya household had more than its fair share of problems; even if Suguha wasn't practicing in the yard, there was a second floor with windows and a peephole on the front door that meant the doorbell would go unanswered if Kyouko was standing outside.

Her work began to slip with her attention on Asuna. One night, a month after the incident with the NervGear, Kyouko found herself staring at her computer screen, knowing she wouldn't be able to get any sort of meaningful work done tonight.

It was then that her phone began to ring.

She picked it up hurriedly, looking at the screen. It wasn't a caller she had registered; in fact, it wasn't a number she recognized at all. After a moment of uncertainty, she reasoned that she was confident in her ability to recognize a potential scammer in a hurry and hit Answer, raising the phone to her ear. "Hello?"

 _"Excuse me."_ The voice on the other end seemed to be a fairly young girl. _"I'm looking for Kyouko Yuuki?"_

"Speaking."

_"I'm calling in regards to Asuna Yuuki."_

Kyouko started, glancing at her phone again. "May I ask who's calling?"

_"My name is Yui..."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two chapters and a oneshot successfully writing "Kazuto" when writing the real world without flaw, but I go to write the phrase "Asuna and Kazuto" and I automatically write "Asuna and Kirito" and the rest of the paragraph before I realize my mistake.


	3. Choice to Converse

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fire the headcanons. A major element in this chapter is something I concocted from wholecloth; I don't know how well it meshes with canon, I'm not expecting it to mesh at all to be honest, and I don't care whether it meshes or not.

"Oh, jeez, is it that late already?"

The day was growing long in New Aincrad; Kirito, Asuna, and their friends had spent a good period questing together (with Sinon having decided to join in) and had returned to Floor 22. The intention was to stop by the log house and relax, but as Silica realized after a glance at the time, it was a lot later than they had anticipated.

Klein yelped. "Oh, crap," he muttered, "my dinner's gonna be here in like three minutes! I gotta get dressed!"

"Too much information," Sinon muttered. "But yeah, I should go, too. I was gonna head back to GGO for the daily shop offer before the date changed." She scratched behind her Cait Sith ears. "I hope the server clock's not too far ahead of me."

The others similarly were of the mind to leave quickly; once they were inside, everyone bid their farewells before logging out, leaving Kirito, Asuna, Leafa, and Yui at the house.

Leafa stretched with a light groan. "You know," she admitted, "I'm getting kinda hungry. I think I'm gonna start making dinner."

"Oh, let me help," Asuna prompted.

"You sure?" Leafa asked. "I was gonna have it ready for you and onii-chan when you logged out."

"Yeah," Asuna insisted, "one extra hand will just speed it up. Kirito?"

Kirito shook his head. "I'm okay," he insisted. "Come wake me up if I haven't logged out before it's done."

Asuna giggled. "What," she argued, "are you gonna fall asleep in here again, and we're gonna find you in bed with your AmuSphere auto-disconnected?"

"What is it with you and always wanting to lie down before you log out?" Leafa teased.

"It just feels more natural to go from lying down to lying down," Kirito insisted.

The girls giggled before making to log out. "We'll come get you for dinner," Leafa assured him.

The two vanished; once they were gone, Kirito waited a few moments to make sure they weren't coming back in a hurry. Then he started towards one of the couches, and Yui lifted off from atop his head; a light shone from behind him, and when he made to sit down, Navi-Pixie Yui had disappeared, replaced with the player-sized girl he and Asuna had first met in SAO.

"You wanted to talk to me?" Kirito mused.

Yui sat down next to him. "I'm worried about Mama," she confessed. "She's been down ever since..."

Kirito sighed. "Since her mother came to the house," he admitted. "That's understandable." He leaned back. "Mrs. Yuuki wasn't willing to see things from Asuna's perspective. That kind of rift between parent and child can be hard on you."

"I want to find a way to cheer Mama up," Yui explained. "But... I don't think things are gonna change until she fixes things with Kyouko."

"Yui, listen to me," Kirito insisted, setting a hand over hers. "Your Mama and I are happy spending time with you. It's not your job to try and solve our problems. You had nothing to do with this."

"But Kyouko got mad at Mama because she's spending time in ALfheim Online, right?" Yui asked.

Kirito sighed. "That doesn't mean you're responsible," he insisted. "Mrs. Yuuki just... won't see past the SAO incident. She's only willing to look at the bad. She won't consider the good." He put an arm around Yui lovingly. "You're part of the good. Me and Asuna getting to meet you in SAO, getting to spend time with you in ALO - that alone makes everything that we went through in SAO worth it."

Yui leaned against him. "Thanks, Papa." She closed her eyes. "But... I still want to help somehow. Mama won't talk to Kyouko. That's not going to help fix things. I want to help Kyouko see the good parts."

"How do you mean?" Kirito asked.

With a heavy sigh, Yui sat upright. "I... want to talk to Kyouko."

Kirito blinked in surprise. "What?"

"I want the chance to talk to her," Yui explained. "If I can speak to her myself, I can help her see things from Mama's perspective. But... if Kyouko doesn't want anything to do with ALfheim Online, I don't know how I can." She turned to Kirito. "Can you find a way for me to make contact with her?"

The request caught Kirito off-guard; he hadn't expected Yui to try and take such action in their problems. After a moment, however, her loosed a sigh and shook his head.

"...You already can, technically."

Yui blinked. "What?"

"You know the program I wrote for you," Kirito explained, "that lets you contact me and Asuna through our phones? What I did, basically, was... I set up a program that registers as a phone number, and gave you a fixed address book for just us two. Then I wrote an app for us that automatically call you when we activate it. Because of how you can interface with it, there's next to no dialing time when we call you. And I set up the app so that it automatically puts you through when you try to call us, unless we're in the middle of a call ourselves."

"So, you're saying I can call Kyouko myself?" Yui asked.

"Not yet," Kirito admitted. "I'll have to tweak it a bit to enable you to dial, or add her number to your address book." He raised a finger warningly. "But... if you really want to change her mind about ALO, she's not going to want to listen to you over the phone. You should try to talk to her face-to-face."

"What about the camera-based chat?" Yui inquired. "Is that one set up like the call is?"

Kirito shook his head. "No, that's just a localized program that opens a chat with whoever's at my computer. That being said..."

* * *

A few days later found Kazuto working at his desktop almost straight through to nightfall after they got home from school. Suguha had to come and pull him away from the computer when dinner was ready - and found him incredibly stiff in the process.

"Hey, Asuna," Kazuto inquired towards the end of the meal, "what's your mother's phone number?"

Asuna glanced up in surprise. "Sorry?"

"I got a call from a number I didn't recognize earlier." Kazuto hoped his lie wasn't as transparent as it sounded. "I just wrote it off as some call-scammer, but in hindsight..."

"Yeah," Asuna agreed, "I guess it might've been her." She drew out her cell phone and opened her address book before sliding it towards him.

Kazuto noted with some concern that the entry was labelled Kyouko Yuuki \- implying either that Asuna had changed it since her visit or had always had such a strenuous relationship with her mother. He drew out his own phone and surreptitiously opened a memo before keying in the number. "No, looks like that wasn't it. Must've been a scammer after all."

"Glad you didn't answer, then," Suguha admitted as he slid the phone back to Asuna. "If you answer once, they know it's a real number and start calling you more often."

Asuna looked to her. "Really? Even when they don't get anything out of it?"

"Never underestimate a fraud," Suguha mused.

No one was in much of a mood to head to ALO; Asuna decided to call it an early night a few hours later, and as she entered Kazuto's room, she was surprised to him back at the desktop. "What are you up to?" she asked.

"Yui was helping me with something the other day when the chat started glitching up," Kirito explained. "I'm trying to figure out if it was something in the program I wrote for her or if I'm just running out of storage space." This one wasn't _quite_ a lie; after the edits he'd made to Yui's call program, he had run tests with having Yui call him and triple-checking everything just out of paranoia, and he wouldn't be surprised if he had a bit less storage left than before. "I won't take too long, I promise."

"Take your time," Asuna insisted. "I don't want you cutting corners around Yui."

"Of course I won't," Kazuto assured her.

It only took a half-hour more before Asuna was asleep; once she was, Kazuto opened a text file. _Kyouko's phone number: XXX-XXX-XXXX_

He lifted his fingers from the keyboard; after a moment, the cursor dropped a line before typing more. _Is it too late to call her now?_

Kazuto glanced at the clock. _I don't think so. It should be fine for just arranging a rendezvous._

_Okay. Thanks, Papa. <3_

* * *

Kazuto smiled at his webcam before seizing his mouse. After a moment, the window of the text box vanished, and then the one for his chat camera went dark. Yui stood alone in a wooden structure similar to their player home in New Aincrad (or at least the storage room therein); once the chat had ended, however, Yui stepped back, and the log structure scattered into individual voxels, revealing a dark blue void.

Each of the cameras mounted in the Kirigiya household - equipped with a speaker and microphone so Yui could hear and speak as well as see - had its imagery shown by a window here. One on the wall in the entryway, one on the wall in the dining area, one sitting on the table in the living room, and one that Kazuto had on a shoulder-mount (which had formerly been used by Yuuki Konno), in addition to the window for the video chat at Kazuto's desktop.

Or laptop, depending on where he was accessing the chat from. Yui liked to pretend there was no meaningful difference, but the webcam he had at his desktop was of a noticeably better quality than the camera embedded in his laptop.

The only movement in the Kirigaya household was Suguha putting away the dishes from dinner (when it was her turn to do the dishes, she tended to let them air-dry and then forget about them until right before bed). After a moment, Yui noticed the red warning sign on the mounted camera, and she stepped up to the dining-room camera. When she raised a finger towards the window, a row of settings appeared beneath it; she tapped the button with the mic symbol to activate the speakers on the canera, and spoke up. "Leafa?"

Suguha glanced up. _"Hm? Yui?"_

"Could you plug in the shoulder camera in the hallway?" Yui requested. "Papa left it unplugged yesterday, and the battery is almost depleted."

 _"Sure thing,"_ Suguha assured her.

Yui tapped the mic button again, turning off the camera's speakers; then she tapped the speaker symbol, silencing the audio input from the camera microphone. She _could_ simply trigger these settings by will, but she liked to affect them by touch, as a player would affect things in a VRMMO. It was for this reason that she liked to keep the camera displays around her while she was here, along with the setting for her video chat and the setup for her call function; she would approach each as she had need of it, unless urgent matters necessitated otherwise.

With Kazuto's updates for the call having been finished, Yui went to each camera, disabling the speakers and then turning off the mics. She waited until Suguha had finished plugging in the mounted camera and thanked her before disabling that one; then she stepped up to the call function and opened the dial pad.

She took a moment to think through what she wanted to say to Kyouko; then she keyed in her number and hit Call.

It was a different sensation, hearing the sound of the call trying to connect compared to the instant connection of calling Kazuto or Asuna. After a moment of hearing it echo in her void, Yui manifested the storage room around her again; the confined space meant it didn't seem nearly so loud.

She was starting to worry the call would go ignored when the tone ended abruptly, and a familiar woman's voice came through. _"Hello?"_

"Excuse me," Yui prompted, "I'm looking for Kyouko Yuuki?"

 _"Speaking,"_ Kyouko confirmed.

Yui smiled briefly, though it didn't last long. "I'm calling in regards to Asuna Yuuki."

 _"Wha-!?"_ Kyouko seemed surprised; after a short while, she spoke again. _"May I ask who's calling?"_

"My name is Yui. I would like to speak to you in person. When would you be available to meet with me?"

 _"Um, just a moment..."_ There was an extended pause before Kyouko spoke again. _"I can meet you in... three days,"_ she replied. _"What time would be best for you?"_

"Any time between 5 and 7 PM," Yui replied. "Are you familiar with the Dicey Cafe?"

Kyouko was quiet for a moment. _"I don't know the place personally,"_ she admitted, _"but I should be able to find it well enough. I can be there for five o'clock."_

Yui nodded. "Very well. I'll see you then. Tell the owner you're looking for Yui."

_"Yes."_

Kyouko hung up on the other end, and Yui breathed a sigh of relief, letting the room vanish around her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who haven't read my Christmas-cum-monthly fic, quick point that I can't bring up easily: my headcanon about Yui's communication stuff is that Kazuto just writes programs that Yui can interface with, he doesn't affect any of the coding of Yui herself.


	4. Chance to Share

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember that Kirito got an oolong tea when he asked for a hard drink. Fail to remember what hard drink he asked for, just that he wanted it on the rocks. Discover that connection is acting slow enough that bringing up the episode would take way too long. Google "on the rocks" + "oolong tea". Discover some jackass who decides that not liking an anime is grounds to needlessly insult every character individually, poses it as a 'review' for the LAST EPISODE of the first season, and TAGS IT AS CONTAINING SPOILERS.
> 
> Next time I'm just gonna power through my slow connection.

"Dicey Cafe..."

When Kyouko had told Yui that she would be able to find the locale that she had been asked to, what she really meant was that the location had come up on her phone's map application - which included a pathfinding option to give her directions on foot. She'd never come down this way before; the cafe entrance was situated in a back alley, and the only real designator that she had been pointed to the right place was the logo mounted upon the door, with the name of the locale beneath two dice reading one and six.

 _Is this a cafe or a bar?_ Kyouko shook her head. _It must at least be open to minors, or she wouldn't have asked me to come here._

With a deep breath, she pushed the door open - earning a ring from the door mounted above it - and stepped inside. The cafe had a rather small interior, with four tables that looked like they could each hold five max, and a bar with stools lined up before it. Aside from the barista, there was only one individual there at present - a brunette girl reading a book, with what seemed to be an iced tea at her side.

Uncertain she had the right place, Kyouko stepped up to the bar, getting the attention of the barista - a dark-skinned bald man in a white outfit who seemed to have been washing dishes when she arrved. "Welcome," he greeted with a smile. "Can I help you?"

"I think so," Kyouko confirmed. "I was asked to come here by a girl named... Yui?"

The barista's smile faltered just briefly. "I see," he mused. "She'll be a minute, have a seat. Can I get you a drink in the meantime?"

Kyouko sat down at one of the stools. "...Oolong tea?" she requested.

With a nod, the barista stepped aside to prepare her drink, cracking his knuckles loudly enough to be heard throughout the cafe. Deciding not to risk leaving an unpaid tab, Kyouko drew out a few bills and set them down upon the bar. As her drink was being poured, the girl with the book stepped up to the bar to return her now-empty drink before making to depart; the barista slid Kyouko's drink down to her and set the empty glass into the sink before retreating into the back room.

 _If she was trying for a covert rendezvous on_ _purpose,_ Kyouko observed, _she picked the right place. Empty so early?_ She glanced at the drink fridges, seeing that there were a few varieties of alcoholic drinks sitting in there. _Then again, maybe it gets busier at night. She said between 5 and 7. The early boundary would be her availability on a weekday... the late boundary must be before it gets_ _busy._ She turned her attention back to her drink as the barista came back out. _Even setting aside her age, I wouldn't want to try and hold a meaningful conversation where people get drunk. There's no way to-_

Something sliding her way derailed her train of thought; she moved her drink aside and was surprised to find an open laptop coming to a stop before her. The light next to the embedded camera was lit, telling her the camera was on; an unfamiliar symbol on the toolbar was illuminated, and a dark window filled the screen that quickly faded in to show a dark-haired girl with her back to a wooden wall.

 _"Hello."_ The voice was the same one who had called her. _"Kyouko Yuuki?"_

Kyouko set her drink aside. "You're Yui?"

The girl nodded. _"A pleasure to finally meet you,"_ she greeted.

"I thought you said you wanted to speak in person," Kyouko observed.

 _"I did,"_ Yui admitted. _"But I'm taken to understand that you're unwilling to use VR. I'm afraid this is as close to speaking in person as we can get."_

Kyouko's mouth contorted briefly. "I see," she mused. "You told me you wanted to talk about Asuna. You would be one of her... 'friends' from her game?"

Yui nodded. _"You could say that,"_ she confirmed.

"So that's how it is," Kyouko muttered, picking up her drink. "And which game did you meet her in? Are you one of the ones she met recently, or one of those children from Sword Art Online who were running around killing each other?" She raised the glass to her mouth.

 _"Asuna killed more people in Sword Art Online than several of the older players put together,"_ Yui proclaimed. Kyouko froze in mid-motion, her fingers tightening on her glass, and Yui continued, _"Furthermore, most of the younger players made no attempt to engage in any sort of exploration or combat after the circumstances of the game were announced. Most of the Assault Teams, as well as the vast majority of those who made attempts on the lives of other players, consisted of adult players and players approaching adulthood, such as Asuna."_

Kyouko set her glass down. "You would lump Asuna in with a group of murderers?"

 _"I don't believe killing another person in self-defense is considered murder,"_ Yui corrected. _"Asuna was one of the foremost members of the Assault Teams - the players who tried to clear the game in order to free everyone, and protected other players in the meantime. There is no reason to consider Asuna a murderer, nor is there reason to accuse any of the players she associates with of being murderers."_

The calm tone with which this young girl spoke of death and danger unnerved Kyouko. "And where exactly do you fit in?" she demanded. "Who are you, exactly?"

Yui took a deep breath, and closed her eyes.

_"...I am Sword Art Online's Mental Health Counseling Program 001 - codenamed 'Yui'."_

Kyouko started. "A program...? You're an AI?!"

 _"I was responsible for overseeing the mental states of the players of Sword Art Online,"_ Yui continued. _"Asuna Yuuki was one of the few players who was able to live a positive life during the two years trapped in the world of the game. Because of this, she continues to spend time in virtual reality so as to continue to have positive experiences with others who were similarly able to-"_

"You've got to be kidding me," Kyouko growled. "You can't tell me that she had a **positive life** trapped in... in that _device!_ You expect me to listen to a _program_ telling me that her life is somehow **better** if she spends time in some fake world!?"

 _"What is the difference between your world and a virtual world?"_ Yui accused.

Kyouko seized the ridge of the laptop. " **My** world is **real!** "

She slammed the device closed, uncaring for who it might have belonged to; then she stormed out of the Dicey Cafe, slamming the door shut behind her.

After the bell ceased to ring, silence wrapped the bar.

Then the barista stepped out of the back room again - and following closely behind him was a figure dressed in black. Kazuto picked up the laptop as its drive went silent, telling him it had gone into sleep mode; as he made to leave the bar, he drew out his phone, and opened Yui's call app.

 _"I'm sorry, Papa,"_ Yui pleaded.

"Don't be," Kazuto assured her. "You did all you could."

_"I just... I'm worried I made it worse."_

Kazuto sighed as he opened the door. "If she won't see things from Asuna's side," he insisted, "that's her own fault."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one feels shorter than the preceding, I apologize.


	5. Reprimand for Actions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stupid trivia point on the SAO Wiki's page for Ragout Rabbit: "According to Kirito and Asuna, it tastes similar to chicken." Good lady, this is what happens when your wiki wants to have a page on everything in an episodic series.

_" **My** world is **real!** "_

Yui felt a pain that she hadn't expected when Kyouko said those words; she had no chance to respond before the woman closed the laptop, cutting off the camera feed as the device entered sleep mode. The log house room vanished around her as she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath as she tried to fight back tears.

The call function activated as Kazuto called her, and Yui tried her best not to sound sad as she spoke. "I'm sorry, Papa."

 _"Don't be,"_ Kazuto insisted. _"You did everything you could."_

"I just..." Yui opened her eyes; without meaning to, she'd relocated to the call display. "I'm worried I made it worse."

Kazuto sighed into the line. _"If she won't see things from Asuna's side, that's her own fault. You're not responsible."_

Yui nodded weakly; then she touched the End button, hanging up the call.

It wasn't like she was unaware of the differences between the world where her Papa was called "Kazuto" and the worlds where he was called "Kirito". She knew full well exactly what made a virtual world unlike the material world, no matter how realistic a developer tried to make it. And she knew - Asuna and all her friends had agreed - that a digital world was no less 'real' to those who lived in it and loved it. That was Kayaba's vision for Sword Art Online; by making it so things could truly be lost in Aincrad, the experiences of that world had carried all the same weight as the experiences of any other.

But the anger and disdain in Kyouko's proclamation had struck Yui deeply. She wasn't simply ignorant of the digital worlds; she refused to acknowledge that anything that existed in a virtual world could carry any weight in the material world. When Yui had told Asuna of what she was, Asuna had refused to let it affect how she saw Yui, and that had filled her with joy. Yet when she told Kyouko what she was, Kyouko had ceased to see her as a person, and disregarded her as a program acting off a script.

The windows of the cameras and call vanished from the void around her; Yui huddled herself into a ball, and let herself cry.

* * *

"Kirito?"

Asuna's comment as Kazuto emerged from the bathroom wrapped in a towel drew his attention. "Oh, Asuna..."

"Could you do me a favour and stop in ALO while I'm in the shower?" Asuna requested. "Yui's not responding at any of the cameras, and when I tried to call her, it didn't go through."

"Oh, no," Kazuto murmured.

Asuna blinked. "Did you happen to change something about her call while you were looking for glitches in the chat?"

"You could say that," Kazuto muttered, glad she was coming up with her own answers.

"Jeez," Asuna groaned. "I thought that anecdote about programmers fixing one bug and finding two more was a joke."

"When a programmer's not careful," Kazuto insisted, " _they're_ a joke." He shook his head. "But the only changes I made were to the calls, I didn't affect the cameras. If she's not answering at the cameras, it's not related."

"Alright," Asuna mused. "Still, talk to her for me, okay?"

"I will."

She stepped into the bathroom, and Kazuto made his way to his bedroom. He was halfway in before Suguha's voice behind him prompted, "I take it your little trip to the cafe didn't go so well?"

"Please tell me you didn't tell Asuna about the meeting," Kazuto pleaded, turning around.

"Of course I didn't tell her, onii-chan," Suguha insisted. "But I was tempted when Yui didn't answer the phone." She stepped forward. "What did Mrs. Yuuki say to Yui?"

Kazuto sighed. "Yui was trying to get her to see from Asuna's point of view," he explained. "She pointed out that Asuna was among those who had a positive life in SAO, and Mrs. Yuuki went on a rant." He took a deep breath. "When Yui asked her for the difference between her world and a virtual world... Mrs. Yuuki said that the difference was that _her_ world was _real_."

Suguha gasped. "That's... Oh, dammit." She glanced down the hall. "If I see her come around here again..."

"You know you're going to get in way too much trouble if you turn your _shinai_ on her," Kazuto warned. "Look, if Asuna asks, I turned off the cameras by mistake."

"...Yeah, okay," Suguha conceded. "I'd buy that. You keep leaving the mounted one unplugged."

* * *

A text box appeared before Yui, causing her to raise her gaze. Through her tears, she saw a short message; _Come to ALO, please? -Papa_

Yui tried her best to wipe her face clean before closing her eyes. With a rush of light, the void of her cloud vanished; voxels of every colour passed her by from all sides, not too different from what an AmuSphere user would experience when they turned on their device, and then the blinding white subsided to reveal the log home in New Aincrad.

She'd only been there for a moment before another flash of light appeared next to her; Kirito had logged in, and he didn't need to say a word before Yui stepped up to him, catching him in a tearful hug.

"You didn't need to do that," Kirito insisted, sitting down on the couch. "Acting all brave after she left."

"I...I know, Papa," Yui murmured. "But..."

Kirito held her close. "Mrs. Yuuki had no business talking to you like that," he proclaimed. "If she's not willing to experience VR for herself, she's in no position to make judgement calls about digital worlds."

Yui sniffed weakly. "It just... hurts," she admitted. "Being treated like that..."

"You don't have to talk to her again," Kirito assured her. "She's not welcome in the house. And I doubt she's ever going to call you again. You're fine."

"Okay, Papa..."

* * *

Kyouko found herself redoubling her efforts to approach Asuna after the 'meeting' at Dicey Cafe. Calls and texts remained pointless, and trying to call from someone else's phone had Asuna hanging up as soon as she heard her mother's voice. Not only did Suguha continue pick up Kazuto and Asuna _after_ school with her kendo equipment prepared, but trying to intercept them en route had led to the discovery that Asuna was carrying around an umbrella - which Kyouko doubted was due to a bad encounter with rain, after the 'demonstration' she'd given when she'd run off.

Almost a month later, her desperation led to her approaching the house during the day. With no kendo practitioner in the yard, Kyouko stepped up to the front door as quickly as she could and knocked on it lightly, keeping herself slightly out of view of the peephole. After a moment, the door opened - stopping on a bolted chain - to reveal Kazuto standing there.

"Kirigiya," Kyouko greeted.

"What are you doing here?" Kazuto demanded.

"I want to speak to my daughter," Kyouko explained.

Kazuto narrowed his gaze. "I don't know why you think Asuna has any interest in speaking to _you_ ," he observed, "after what you did last time."

Kyouko sighed. "Please, I just want to-"

"Don't think we haven't noticed," Kazuto reprimanded. "You coming to the school, expecting to catch her off-guard. You've already shown that you're not willing to compromise, that you're not going to listen to her side of the story. And you've hurt more than just her, now."

"Kazuto, please-"

"You're not welcome here, Kyouko," Kazuto said firmly. "Good day."

The door was closed abruptly before Kyouko could try to respond - and then the slide of the lock followed shortly after. With a sigh, she started to retreat... and panic wrought her when she saw Suguha rounding the fence.

A smirk rose on the kendo practitioner's face. "I really don't see what's so hard to understand," she mused.

"I'm leaving," Kyouko insisted. "Your brother already spoke to me."

With a nod, Suguha stepped past her. "You almost seem surprised," she observed.

"...Surprised that he didn't slam the door in my face right away," Kyouko admitted.

"Would you really act like you didn't deserve it if he did?" Suguha retorted, turning to her. "You treat your daughter like trash, you barge in expecting her to listen to you, you refuse to even consider her side of the story, you're bombarding her with calls and texts that you already know are going to go ignored, and when someone else tried to help you see reason, you insulted her and everything she stood for."

Kyouko turned to her. "You're... talking about Yui?"

Suguha shook her head. "You have no business expecting Asuna to listen to you, after you've failed to listen to her." She started towards the house.

"No, wait," Kyouko insisted. "You know about that program?"

"Yui _isn't just a program_ ," Suguha growled, turning around angrily. "She's her own person, in every sense of the word. The fact that she can only _really_ interact with the digital world just means that we have to go to ALO to talk to her in person - no different than making a friend in another city, or another prefecture. And the way you treated her when she told you that means that you **hurt** her - just like you hurt Asuna."

She turned away. "And you had no excuse for doing it to either of them."

* * *

"You're making a _what?_ "

Lisbeth giggled at Kirito's surprise. "Another Leprechaun smith suggested it," she explained. "One of her customers was complaining about there not being any easy ways to make money, and she said that 'easy money is never guaranteed'. It gave her the idea for-"

"You can't make a _gambling outpost_ in _Alfheim_ ," Klein protested. "First of all, where are you even gonna get the funds for something like that? You can't expect NPCs to cooperate."

"It's meant to be a player-versus-player thing," Silica insisted. "You go in at your own risk."

"And what about the odd player out?" Asuna argued. "You gonna make them wait for an opponent to open up?"

"Actually, Sinon gave us an idea," Silica explained. "She said there was a place in GGO where-"

"That stupid running dodge game," Kirito realized, facepalming. "If you don't win, your money just gets added to the pot."

"Exactly," Lisbeth confirmed. "Well, she said there's certain boundaries where you win a fixed amount, but I think we can set up our minigames with a 'win from all the losers' prize."

Leafa hummed. "You know what, you're making me curious," she admitted. "I'm gonna come check this out, see what you've got so far."

"Can I go, Mama?" Yui asked.

Asuna caught the Navi-Pixie's wings between her fingers. "Absolutely not," she insisted, "you're not going to a casino."

"And neither are we," Kirito agreed. "Let's head home."

"Come on," Klein argued, "let the girl have some fun."

"Even if we were going let her to do something like that," Asuna argued, "how suspicious is it going to look if someone's private pixie shows up all on her own?"

"Ah..." Klein pouted. "Okay, that's fair. Alright, but I'm sending you guys a review!"

The two groups went their separate ways; as they reached the log house, Kirito stretched his arms over his head with a yawn. "So," he mused, "I'm not _hungry_... but I am in the mood for something sweet."

Asuna giggled. "Is that your way of asking me to make you dessert in ALO?" she teased. "I always wondered if you'd get peckish if we started playing after dinner."

Yui hopped down from Asuna's shoulder, shifting to her full-sized body. "I'd like some, too."

"Now you two are ganging up on me!" Asuna complained - but there was a smile on her face. "Fine, I'll cook something." She glanced up at the time. "But it's getting late; after this, we should call it a night, okay?"

"That's why I always use my AmuSphere in bed," Kirito admitted, opening his friends-messaging. "I'll tell Sugu not to wake us after she logs out."

As much questing as Asuna and Kirito did, they had a significant portion of ALO's ingredients selection stocked up in their inventories - and because eating in VR didn't fill anyone up in the real world, Asuna didn't do as much cooking as she had in SAO. That didn't mean she'd given up the maxed-out cooking skill after she'd transferred her stats from Aincrad; a few taps of cookware prepared things perfectly; before the hour had changed, the family was snacking on an excellent New Aincrad dessert.

It didn't take long after the dishes were empty before they retired for the night. Asuna and Kirito were barely on the bed for three minutes before their AmuSpheres detected they were asleep, automatically logging them out. Yui took a bit longer to get drowsy; she was considering whether or not to fall asleep in ALO before a sound reached her.

A _ringing_.

Yui sat upright abruptly, looking around before she realized what the cause was. She closed her eyes as Alfheim vanished from around her, then opened them in the cloud; the call function had a changed display, showing the number calling her.

It was Kyouko Yuuki's number.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Read about the SAO video games. Discovered the first one is audacious canon derailment. Not interested.  
> Noticed them mentioned on Yui's page. Discovered she's a character early on in the first one. Interested.


	6. Request for Forgiveness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just realized that the way Yui's settings affect the cameras is so backwards. Normally with a two-way call, your mic setting affects whether your mic is reading and your speaker setting affects whether your speaker is on. With Yui's cameras, because of her own nature, her -mic- setting affects whether the -camera's- SPEAKER is on, and her -speaker- setting affects whether the -camera's- MIC is reading.

Two weeks had passed since Kyouko's attempt to visit the Kirigaya household had been turned away by both siblings. After the lecture she'd gotten from Kazuto and Suguha, she'd stopped trying call Asuna or approach her on the path to school - yet all the same, her concern was over her daughter. Work couldn't take her mind off it; her appetite had deteriorated without company at the dinner table.

As she stepped away from her computer, she found herself drawing out her phone. Staring at the lock screen for a long moment, she eventually opened up her address book, scrolling down to the single-name entry near the bottom of her alphabetical listing.

Yui

She'd registered the number in her phone after they'd arranged for the meeting at Dicey Cafe, so that she could dial or recognize it quickly, in case of complications should one of them be unable to make the appointment. But since that meeting, there had been no contact between them; Yui had never called, nor had Kyouko called her. The discovery that she had been approached by an AI intending to change her mind about Asuna's tendencies had angered her.

_You refused to consider my desires, refused to consider what I want - what I hold dear._

_And you've hurt more than just her now._

_She's her own person, in every sense of the word._

Yet as Kyouko thought about what she'd experienced since Asuna's show with the NervGear, she realized that Yui was the biggest reason why Asuna and the Kirigaya siblings had refused to let her approach. Given what Suguha had said, Yui had to be the reason why Asuna spent so much time using her AmuSphere - and the way she had treated Yui had only strengthened their reluctance to hear her out.

With a deep breath, Kyouko tapped Yui's name, and hit Call.

* * *

Yui stared at the number that was ringing before her, not understanding. She couldn't comprehend why Kyouko Yuuki was trying to call her again. Did she intend to rant at her for being a program? Was this her experiment to make sure this was how Yui could be reached, that she could warn others? Or was this not just a call, but some sort of attempt to trace her, that she could find Yui's cloud and infect her with some sinister malware?

A shaking hand reached forward and touched Answer; once the call was connected, Yui spoke. "Hello?"

_"Hello, Yui?"_

"Kyouko Yuuki." Yui stepped back, as though the display could burn her somehow. "Why are you calling me?" She couldn't keep the fear out of her voice.

_"I... wanted to apologize."_

Yui's eyes widened. "What?"

 _"For... storming out on you,"_ Kyouko explained. _"But I want to do it in person. Could I ask you to meet with me again?"_

"You want to... speak with me again?" Yui could barely believe her ears.

 _"...Yes,"_ Kyouko insisted. _"This time, I promise I'll hear what you have to say."_

Yui closed her eyes. "...When could you be there?"

 _"I'm open for a week starting tomorrow,"_ Kyouko proclaimed. _"Any time after 9 AM."_

"Alright," Yui insisted. "In three days, come to the same cafe as last time. Between noon and 4 PM."

_"Same process as before?"_

"Yes."

Yui ended the call from afar; then she breathed a sigh. _Papa's not going to be happy._

* * *

Three days later, Kyouko found herself stepping into Dicey Cafe once again.

She wasn't totally surprised to find the place empty; the one visitor she'd had last time had looked like she was a high school student, and if all the daytime locals were of similar age, then this hour would be peacetime. A woman was behind the counter this time; Kyouko awkwardly stepped up to the bar, drawing her attention.

"Welcome," she greeted. "What can I get for you?"

"Um, oolong tea, please," Kyouko requested. "A... girl named Yui asked me to come here."

"I see," the barista assured her. "Just a moment."

She poured Kyouko her drink and slid it down to her before retreating into the back room; Kyouko took an awkward sip. _Does everyone who works here know about her? Are they all VR users like Asuna?_ She glanced down into her drink. _This place must be some kind of hangout for them. Maybe that's why Yui wanted a midday meeting this time._

The barista came back out before long, holding a familiar open laptop; she set it down with the screen facing out from the bar and slid it towards Kyouko, where it came to a stop. Sure enough, the chat window was open again, and after a moment, Yui appeared upon it.

 _"Hello again,"_ Yui greeted.

"Hello," Kyouko murmured. 

The barista had disappeared again by the time she glanced up, and Yui spoke. _"Why the sudden change in disposition?"_

"I... had a couple encounters with some of Asuna's friends," Kyouko explained. "Look, I... I'm sorry for the way I acted last time. I shouldn't have spoken to you, that way. I refused to hear what you had to say, despite you choosing to seek me out. I'm sorry."

 _"And now?"_ Yui asked. _"Are you willing to hear what I have to say?"_

Kyouko took a deep breath. "Yes," she agreed. "Tell me - about Asuna's time in that game."

Yui nodded. _"How much do you know about Sword Art Online?"_

"Only what was on the official news reports," Kyouko insisted. "On the first day, the players were trapped in the game, and those who died had been killed in-game or had people trying to remove their devices."

 _"The world of Sword Art Online was known as Aincrad,"_ Yui explained. _"It consisted of one hundred floors, each approximately the size of a prefecture in Japan. By the time the game ended two years after launch, the players had obtained access to seventy-five floors, with progress becoming significantly slower after the first sixty."_

"Sixty prefectures' worth of space," Kyouko murmured.

 _"Each floor had a different environment,"_ Yui continued. _"Players who did not wish to endanger themselves due to the conditions of the death game would find a location where they could live comfortably and peacefully. Younger players in particular had gathered in an improvised orphanage in the starting town, under the care of some older players responsible for providing them with necessities."_

"What do you mean, 'necessities'?" Kyouko asked. "All the victims were on life support. How could something in-game help them?"

 _"Food eaten in VR causes the player to... feel less hungry,"_ Yui explained. _"Intravenous injection provides sustenance, but does not leave an individual feeling sated. Without eating food in-game, a player still experiences hunger, which can worsen their mood and affect their judgement."_

Kyouko sighed.

 _"Other players chose to advance through the floors in the interest of ending the death game,"_ Yui continued, _"in what was classified by other players as 'Assault Teams'. Asuna was among those players. When progress of the game began to slow due to the increased difficulty, many members of the Assault Teams sought to protect players who were incapable of protecting themselves. "_

"You said... her life in that game was positive," Kyouko recalled. "What did you mean by that?"

Yui closed her eyes. _"The vast majority of players - both among the Assault Teams and those who lived peacefully - spent their time in the game fearful. Much like those living in a place of war, everyone was scared that one wrong course of action could lead to their deaths. Even among red players - those who, as you pointed out, were responsible for the deaths of others - it was more common that they had succumbed to despair than that they actively enjoyed killing._ _Asuna was among the players who instead made the most of their lives; never forgetting the objective, but always making the best of their time._

_"And Kazuto Kirigiya is the reason she was able to do so."_

"Kazuto?" Kyouko exclaimed.

 _"He was a beta tester in Sword Art Online,"_ Yui explained, _"and lacked friends in the real world before the game began. Early on in the game, he met Asuna, who told him that she had chosen to join the Assault Teams on the first floor because she did not want to hide and wait to die. Kazuto helped her to see the positive elements in the game - whether something as great as showing her where to find pleasant food, or something as small as pointing out when the weather was pleasant."_

Kyouko shook her head. "And where do you come in?"

Yui took a deep breath. _"When the death game began,"_ she explained, _"I was forbidden from carrying out my role as a mental health counselor. This eventually led to a glitch that caused me to manifest in the game world. Kazuto and Asuna found me and did their best to help me. Eventually, Sword Art Online's system realized the glitch and attempted to delete me. Kazuto was able to save my data to his NervGear, with intent to restore my form. That desire, shared between them, was a major motivator for why the game ended as soon as it did."_

"But..." Kyouko shook her head. "Then you're telling me that Asuna spends so much time using that device because... she wants to spend time with _you_?"

There was visible displeasure on Yui's face when Kyouko said that, and she took a moment to respond.

 _"...No,"_ she insisted. _"Kazuto has developed several means for me to interact - to a degree - with the real world. Asuna frequently makes use of these to spend time with me. She continues to use her AmuSphere because she enjoys the virtual worlds she can partake in therewith. It allows her to spend time with friends who she may not be able to meet up with easily in the real world, and presents experiences that she would not be able to have otherwise. And above all, she appreciates and cherishes her time in Sword Art Online."_

"But **why** would she appreciate that?" Kyouko demanded. "Why would anyone cherish time spent fighting for their lives? Why would she want to build up experiences in a fake world?"

_"The quantity of data."_

Yui's quiet statement wrought Kyouko with confusion. "What?"

_"It's the answer to a question you've been asked before."_

She reached forward, and the chat window went dark.

"Yui?" Kyouko seized the edge of the laptop. "Yui!"

No response; the chat had ended.

With a sigh, Kyouko closed the laptop - slower this time - and made to leave the cafe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not done yet. In fact, I don't think I'm gonna be done while this still has single-digit chapters (although I did get proven wrong last time I thought that).


	7. Circumstances of Interaction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry if this chapter takes longer to get up; as I'm starting to write this, me and Draco are coming off an all-night gaming session. Due to time zone differences, Kingdom Hearts III Re:Mind came out at 21:00 in our time zone. Connection speeds meant the update wasn't downloaded until about 23:30. I was playing mission control while Draco power-bombed through the DLC. Main Re:Mind done by 5:00, Limitcut Episode took him until 10:00, we had breakfast, then he spent six hours trying to beat [Spoiler Boss] for the Secret Episode wondering if there were any different cutscenes if you beat someone you don't have to. Eventually, he declared that [Spoiler Boss] was as good as unbeatable for him, personally, and he'll wait until someone's got a YouTube video up.
> 
> Protip: never try to be the good girlfriend after a mutual all-nighter. Especially if you have trouble falling asleep during the day. I've never been that tired before.
> 
> [EDIT: Gaining the last 30 levels to the cap is a LOT easier in KHIII than it was in KHII, and good lady does it make a difference to fight at Lv99. [Spoiler Boss] is down.]

Suguha stepped into the Dicey Cafe to find Andrew behind the bar and the house otherwise empty; he turned at the sound of the door's ringing and smirked when he saw her. "Hey," he greeted. "Here to pick up Kirito's laptop?"

"Pretty much," Suguha confirmed.

Andrew drew the device out from beneath the bar and handed it to her. "I'm guessing Asuna got suspicious last time."

Suguha accepted it with an awkward smile. "Something like that." She started out of the cafe with the laptop under her arm; once she was outside, she drew out her phone, checking her message from Kazuto.

_Me & Asuna roped into shopping 4 casino w Si; can u grab my laptop @ Agil's?_

Sending a quick confirmation that she'd made the pickup, Suguha made her way home. After a quick glance around to make sure Kyouko hadn't visited, Suguha made her way inside. "I'm home," she called to the almost-empty house.

 _"Welcome home, Leafa,"_ Yui greeted from the entryway camera.

Her relatively-somber mood was not lost on Suguha. "So," the kendo practitioner asked, "how did talk #2 with Mrs. Yuuki go?"

 _"Um..."_ Yui hesitated for a moment. _"She... started by apologizing."_

Suguha was very glad she had been about to set Kazuto's laptop down already, because it abruptly slipped from her fingers, falling the last few centimetres to the table surface. "Oh. Wow. Really?"

 _"I got her to listen to what I had to say about Asuna and Sword Art Online,"_ Yui continued. _"But... she's still kind of... rude about VR."_

"Yeah, well, can't really expect that to change too quickly," Suguha admitted. "Baby steps and everything. If she's not treating you like dirt, that's a start."

 _"Yeah, that's true,"_ Yui agreed.

Suguha stretched her arms above her head briefly. "It's a nice day out today," she told Yui. "You want me to put the shoulder camera outside?"

* * *

Yui decided to take her up on that offer - and it was to that scene that Kazuto and Asuna came home, a few hours later. A smile rose on Asuna's face as she arrived; she gave Suguha a wide berth as she approached the camera. _"Enjoying the weather, Yui?"_

"Pretty much, Mama," Yui admitted.

When the cameras were going somewhere, or while everyone remained at home, Yui was content to view the video, contribute to the conversations - that was more than enough to experience things. But if she spent long enough in a single environment, Yui like to step it up a notch. She'd spent the first ten minutes after Suguha brought the camera outside scanning the yard diligently; ten minutes were more than enough to get a full picture, and it paid off.

Within her cloud, Yui was sitting upon the porch of the Kirigaya household; the camera shifted, that she could see everyone moving, as Asuna sat down next to her.

Suguha lowered her _shinai_ as she turned to Kazuto. _"How was the gambler's shopping trip, onii-chan?"_

Kazuto groaned. _"So, get this,"_ he mused. _"While Lisbeth and Sinon are collaborating on the run-and-dodge, Silica's trying to put together cards and dice."_

 _"Would that even work in ALO?"_ Suguha asked, turning towards Yui.

"Mhm," Yui confirmed. "Adding images to items is easy; the hard part is getting the images in the first place. Your options are to port an image file from your computer, capture a picture with an item in-game, or draw it yourself."

 _"Guild logos work the same way,"_ Asuna pointed out. _"Photography didn't really work for that in SAO,_ _and with everyone stuck in their NervGears 24/7, that left art. Most guilds defaulted to fancy initials until they found good artists."_

Kazuto sighed. _"Anyways, we're looking at a board game shop,"_ he pointed out, _"trying to find a deck that would aesthetically work well in ALfheim. Silica's walking us through how she's planning on feeding the deck into a scanner when she stumbles across this themed one from some anime - where every card has a character or plot device on it."_

 _"Don't tell me,"_ Suguha pleaded.

Asuna giggled. _"Yep,"_ she confirmed. _"She's planning on getting a bunch of photo-captures of weapons and stuff to count the pictures. I think she said she was gonna do the suits like a tarot deck - swords, staves, coins, and cups."_

Suguha hummed. _"What about the dice?"_ she asked.

Yui shook her head. "Dice might be trickier," she admitted. "There's a minimum size for how you can place your images; the best dice are small enough to hold five in one hand. It would be easier for her to carve the pips onto the surface, but that would weaken their durability. Even rolling an undamaged die would lower its durability over time; they'd have to keep carving new ones."

Kazuto rolled his shoulders. _"Anyways, I'm getting kind of hungry._ _I'm gonna get started on dinner."_

As he stepped inside, Suguha turned to Asuna. _"Say,"_ she mused, her tone that of someone who hoped she was wrong, _"didn't you guys stock the log house with enough dishes to serve fifty?"_

 _"Twenty,"_ Asuna corrected, _"why?"_

_"You said she was gonna do cups..."_

Silence filled the yard for a moment; then Yui and Asuna shot to their feet, the projection of the yard vanishing from the cloud. "I'm gonna make sure she's not doing anything yet," Yui said quickly.

 _"Keep her out of the cupboards until I'm there to lock them!"_ Asuna requested, dashing inside.

* * *

Kazuto had finished dinner by the time Asuna was sure their dishware was safe. While they were eating, Asuna's phone went off with a call; she drew the device just long enough to glance at the screen before tapping it and setting it aside.

"Your mother again?" Kazuto asked.

"I swear she thinks she can wear me down somehow," Asuna muttered.

Suguha glanced towards Yui's camera awkwardly. "I don't think waiting for a period and then calling you can be considered 'wearing you down'," she admitted. "After so long, maybe you should..."

Asuna shook her head. "She's never been willing to compromise before," she insisted, "I have no reason to think that's changed any. I'm not treating her any differently than she's treated me." Her gaze fell. "Besides, I... did disown her as my mother. That's not something you can take back easily."

The rest of the meal continued in relative silence; once they'd finished, Asuna got to her feet. "I'm gonna log back in and make sure Silica's not still trying to break my dishes," Asuna mused. "You coming, Kirito?"

"Right away," Kazuto assured her, "let me do these dishes first and I'll join you."

"Alright," Asuna mused. "Yui?"

 _"I'll come after Papa's done,"_ Yui replied. _"If he takes long enough that you're logging out already, I can lecture him for it."_

Kazuto sighed. "Come on," he insisted, "I don't take that long."

"On your own, sometimes you do," Suguha taunted. "Come on, Asuna, I'll help you keep her out."

The girls started upstairs as Kazuto collected the dishes. While the sink was filling, he picked up the shoulder camera and set it down on the counter before him; Yui adjusted it so she was looking at him properly as he turned the flow off.

"So, how'd it go?" he asked quietly.

 _"Kyouko apologized for what she said last time,"_ Yui replied. _"But she still won't understand why Asuna wants to use her AmuSphere."_

Kazuto nodded. "Are you going to meet with her again, if she asks?"

 _"...No,"_ Yui replied. _"I don't think I can do anything more to help her understand. If Mama's not going to talk to her, I don't think things are going to change."_

With a sigh, Kazuto shook his head. "You did your best," he assured her. "Thank you."

_"But Papa-"_

"Things are better this way," Kazuto assured her. "You're already the best daughter in the world just for helping out as much as you did." He set a hand gently on the camera. "Thank you so much."

_"...You're welcome."_

* * *

Kyouko's efforts to contact Asuna renewed over the next few weeks, although less frequently than before. An attempt to call her on irregular afternoons before dinner; passing by the school as classes ended and hoping she would take notice. Such undemanding attempts still met with failure, no less than before.

Trying to sleep gradually grew less and less effective; almost a month after her second conversation with Yui, Kyouko found herself pacing the house once night fell, hoping to tire her body enough that her mind couldn't keep her awake. As she stepped into Asuna's room, she noticed with some concern that the lack of inhabitant was all too obvious; the room had a level of tidiness to it that even Kyouko's home office didn't, consequent of no one using it and moving thing around.

Yet upon the desk still lay Asuna's AmuSphere, almost untouched since she'd left.

With a sigh, Kyouko started to leave the room before she noticed something on the floor. The note Asuna had left for Kyouko to find, that night she was using the NervGear, had fallen; it must have been disturbed when Kyouko opened the door. She knelt down and picked it up, intending to throw it away - and it was then that she noticed the post scriptum once again.

_P.S. - I don't know for sure whether the NervGear is designed to notify me if someone tries to get my attention the way they would in an AmuSphere. If you touch my shoulder or speak to me, and I haven't logged out in five minutes, the notification hasn't appeared. My AmuSphere is set to automatically log in to my secondary ALO account, where I've left instructions for how to contact me in-game._

Kyouko glanced towards the device again, remembering what Yui had said during their last meeting.

_"It allows her to spend time with friends who she may not be able to meet up with easily in the real world..."_

Hesitance wrought Kyouko; then she stepped up to the AmuSphere and picked it up, hooking the curled power cord over her arm. She found the operator's manual set aside and closed, and picked it up as well before retreating to her own bedroom; she plugged the device in and sat down before opening the manual and finding the usage instructions.

" _Place the AmuSphere upon your head such that the visor rests over your eyes,_ " she read quietly; that was a simple enough matter, although she needed adjust the ring. There was a passive HUD with the time and signal strength for her internet connection, and once it was on, she turned back to the manual. " _Ensure that the power cord is plugged in firmly on both ends._ " The wall connection was firm enough; she reached up for the side of the device and found it had a little give to it, securing it in the port. " _Take a reclined position before activating, ensuring that your surroundings are suitably temperate for long periods at rest._ " She laid down in bed; it was a bit of a strange sensation, feeling the device between her and her pillow. " _Once prepared, AmuSphere is activated by voice command..._ "

She set the manual down at her side and let her head fall.

"L-Link start?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the time I finish this chapter, Draco's found someone who has a YouTube video up already. Hold your comments informing me of such. Sorry it took longer than I meant it to. I don't get to hide behind my player-Yui fic, either, I'd written that one in advance and just waited to update it until the 24th.


	8. Admiration of Environment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Turned on the mother/daughter scene in Mother's Rosario for the start of this chapter. Ended up glancing through the early episodes of that arc trying to find the one I'm looking for. Suddenly, I'm hit with a realization. The SAO survivor's school is, in effect, a therapeutic center. By trying to have Asuna transferred to another school despite Asuna wishing to remain, Kyouko is effectively attempting to -forcibly end her therapy- against her wishes.

Kyouko opened her eyes.

She was standing in what appeared to be a log cabin of some sort. It was a sizeable wide-open room, with a couple of small doors that seemed to lead to bedrooms or possibly pantries; an array of cushioned chairs and couches around a coffee table told her she was standing in the living room, and an array of counter space in the corner seemed to be the kitchen. The building was rather dark, with the only light being from narrow moonbeams coming in through some small windows; as she glanced around, she spied what seemed to be a photograph resting atop a nearby bookshelf.

Then the image moved, and she realized it wasn't a photograph - it was a mirror.

Kyouko glanced down at herself; Asuna's 'secondary account' was a very different body than she was expecting. She was dressed in a strange green ensemble, with a darker top possessing long sleeves and flaps extending from the hips as though to hide something; beneath them, she wore a pair of flexible white trousers and a pair of weighty green boots. Her body felt unusually light; she raised her hands before her, closing and opening them experimentally, before rising to the balls of her feet and then letting her heels hit the floor. She turned back towards the mirror again; her face was framed with greenish-gold hair, and a pair of pointed ears extended out from beneath it.

She reached a hand up towards one ear, and was surprised when she felt her own touch at its tip - where her real ear would not reach.

Curious, she glanced around the house. After a moment, she spied something on one of the support pillars; it seemed to be a light fixture of some sort, but inside it contained some kind of crystal instead of a bulb. Stepping towards it, Kyouko couldn't see any sort of switch, leaving her wondering if it was touch-activated or if it was supposed to sense people in its proximity. She reached a hand towards it, uncertain - and a white circle appeared upon its surface, with which her finger connected. A light tone sounded, causing her to pull her hand back in surprise; a slider appeared beside it, positioned to the lowest setting, and warily, Kyouko set her finger on it and made to move it up.

The crystal inside the fixture started to change colour, going from transparent blue to a bright yellow; the log house around her started to illuminate, and Kyouko glanced around to find several more fixtures illuminating in tandem. Her finger drifted back down the slider until the lights were back off, and she lifted her finger from it; with an uncertain hum, she let her hand fall.

Several more circles trailed behind it, causing her to stumble back and finding it maintained its distance from her; each of these contained a small emblem of some sort, and as they came to a stop equidistant from each other, text appeared beside each of them. Kyouko realized this must have been a menu of some kind, and she glanced at her finger in confusion; after a moment, her attention turned back to the menu, where she noticed one circle - containing what looked like an envelope - was flashing faintly. Remembering that Asuna had left instructions of some sort, Kyoukou reached forward and touched it; the menu moved aside, with an arrow extending from the button she'd pressed, and a listing with several names in cells appeared beside it. She only had a moment to observe it before one name illuminated, and the initial set of circles vanished as the listing moved in the other direction; a display that looked like a text chat appeared, with a large name atop it.

Asuna

There was the bottom half of a line of text at the top of the screen, contained within the arc of what must have been a bubble of some kind; the majority of the display was taken up by a single message.

_Instructions for communication in ALO;_  
_This menu is used for messages between players. The rune on the bottom right will bring up a keyboard, whose input will generate your message; touch the fairy wings next to the typing field to send it. A check mark will appear next to your message if it has been successfully delivered, and a cross will appear if there has been a connection error. If the recipient is offline, you will receive a rebound notification. A rebounded message will be delivered when the recipient logs in, unless the sender deletes it._  
_\--copied from help screen_

Kyouko bit her lip and reached forward to touch the button next to the empty field, which was indeed marked with a strange character she didn't recognize. At her touch, a keyboard came up - large enough that she would mistake it for sitting on a desk, if she had an image of just the keyboard and a pair of hands working on it - and the button was replaced with one of what looked like a butterfly's wing, although it seemed darker than before. It was, however, sitting vertical with the menu, which made input awkward when Kyouko started to type something. After a moment, she noticed a strange shape on the edge of the keyboard that looked almost like a handle of some kind; she reached over and seized it, surprised to feel something solid beneath her hand, and when she made to move it, it rotated the keyboard on an axis as though it were connected to the bottom of the message display.

She propped it to almost horizontal and set her hands on the keys again, finding it much more natural. _Asuna, are you there? I'd like to speak with you._

The winged button became brighter once there was text in the message; Kyouko touched it once she was done, and the message quickly moved up in a new bubble, the rest of the messages moving up in response. No sooner had the input field reappeared, empty, than a dark bubble appeared: _-_ _This player is not online-_

Something changed in the corner of her vision; Kyouko glanced up, realizing just now that there was a display of some sort around the edges of her vision. There was a clock among the items - small enough that it would easily escape her notice if she was in the middle of something - and Kyouko abruptly realized that the time read 11:00.

 _11?_ Kyouko sighed. _Of course she's not online on a weekday._ She raised her hands around the menu. _How do I...?_

Touching the arrow connecting the contact list to the messages only caused the messages to disappear, and the list returned to center focus as the initial menu appeared where they had been; touching the arrow connecting that menu caused the list to disappear as well, leaving her with only the menu connection. Remembering how the downward motion had caused it to appear, Kyouko experimentally dragged upward with her finger - and the menu did indeed disappear.

She glanced around the house. _Is there some way I could leave a note here?_

The only storage space of any sort was that of the kitchen; uncertain, Kyouko stepped towards it. The drawers opened as she expected (although there were buttons whose touch gave her the notification _-You do not have authority to change this lock-_ ), revealing a set of cutlery, a collection of cooking utensils, and what looked like napkins and a cutting board. Opening the cupboards below the drawers uncovered an array of cooking stones, pots, and pans; above the counter, she found a good number of plates, bowls, platters, and glasses.

Kyouko took out one glass, holding it curiously. _Why on earth would a game need dishware?_

She made to put it back in the cupboard - but the difference in height between her body and that of Asuna's account meant that moving her arm as she would in the real world led to the glass colliding with the surface. Kyouko recoiled in surprise, her grip slipping on the glass, and it fell to the floor; the glass shattered as it hit the ground, and when one shard tumbled across her boot, a red line appeared upon it, with a strange, pixellated appearance to it.

After a moment, the shards of the glass started to glow; Kyouko stepped back as they started to waver, like something seen through a heat wave, and then abruptly burst, leaving particles of light scattering in the air and then vanishing.

Kyouko loosed a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, glancing back up towards the cupboard. After a moment, she awkwardly closed the door before kneeling down, touching the red line on her boot. As she made contact, she realized that she felt the touch as though her footwear weren't there; moving her fingers away from the line, however, felt more realistically like she was touching the surface of the boot instead. Although curious, Kyouko put it out of her mind, getting to her feet.

Someone was standing in front of her.

With a yelp, Kyouko stumbled back. "Wha...?" She blinked as she recognized the girl. "Yui?"

"I wasn't expecting someone else to use Erika's account," Yui observed. "Let alone..." She sighed. "Well."

Kyouko blinked. "E-Erika?"

"That's the name of that player account," Yui explained. "Asuna is one of the few players who uses their real name as their username, but it applies to her primary account."

"I-I see," Kyouko murmured. "And you're...." She shook her head. "Okay, how are _you_ here?"

Yui sighed. "It's kind of a long story," she admitted.

She reached up towards the cupboard of glasses, opening the door; one hand seized the counter, using it to lift herself up enough to seize a glass and set it on the counter. Kyouko watched this AI acting just as any little girl would do in the real world when they didn't want to trouble an adult; she withdrew a second glass before closing the cupboard door and bringing them towards a refrigerator. It opened up as expected, and she drew out a bottle of something; it looked like an old-fashioned milk bottle, but contained an orange liquid of some kind (and was only half-full). Yui poured its contents evenly into the two glasses; as it was emptied, it started to shimmer as the broken glass had, and she set it down on the counter and picked up the glasses as it burst.

She offered one to Kyouko; uncertain, she accepted it, and Yui led her towards the living room. The two sat down on one of the couches, Kyouko setting her glass down uncertainly; Yui took a sip of hers and set it down as well before speaking up.

"How much do you know about the end of Sword Art Online?" Yui asked.

"...Most of the victims were freed about two years after the problem was realized," Kyouko recalled. "About three hundred of them remained trapped for some time after, thanks to..."

"Nobuyuki Sugou," Yui finished.

Kyouko winced when she said that name.

"He was attempting to use the NervGear technology to manipulate the minds of the people he had prevented from logging out," Yui explained. Most of the victims were left in a state of unawareness while he performed his experiments. Asuna was forced into a customized avatar designated 'Fairy Queen Titania' - in correspondence to Sugou's avatar as 'Fairy King Oberon'." Yui shook her head. "Unlike the others, Asuna was not subjected to the experimentation. Sugou intended to either coerce her into accepting the role he had designated for her, or wait until he had a reliable method to affect the mind of a NervGear user before-"

"Stop!" Kyouko yelled suddenly. Yui turned to her as she shook her head. "I don't need to know what that bastard wanted. He's long behind bars in the real world."

Yui fell quiet, picking up her glass. "Have a drink," she insisted.

Uncertainly, Kyouko seized her own glass and raised it to her lips, taking a sip. The moment the taste registered on her tongue, she pulled back in surprise, holding the glass out before her. "What...?"

"While in Sword Art Online," Yui explained, "Asuna diligently studied how the flavour engine worked and used it to recreate flavours from the physical world in Aincrad, due to dissatisfaction with the... blunt tastes of Aincradian food. As ALfheim Online was built over the alpha of Sword Art Online, the flavour engine functions the same."

"It's... fruit punch," Kyouko mused.

With a nod, Yui set down her glass and resumed. "Due to the method used by Sugou to acquire his test subjects, the NervGear programming used by Akihiko Kayaba to trap victims in Sword Art Online - that which caused the death of a player whose avatar was defeated, or when someone tried to remove the NervGear by force - was still active. In order to free the victims, Kazuto Kirigaya was forced to find them in the game they were trapped in - ALfheim Online."

"That's... this game," Kyouko realized. "Why would Asuna spend so much time on this one if it's where she...?"

"The Titania avatar was trapped in an administrator-only area that is normally outside the reach of players," Yui explained. "Furthermore, its capabilities were limited so she would be unable to perform any rebellion against her captor. Asuna had no opportunity to experience anything outside that area, and doesn't associate ALfheim Online with her captivity in any meaningful way."

"I see."

She set down her glass as Yui continued. "I told you that Kazuto had managed to save my data to his NervGear," she recalled. "When he logged in to ALfheim Online, his save data from Sword Art Online was carried over, including his stats and inventory. My data was registered as an item in his inventory; because of the nature of ALfheim Online, I was restored in this game. After doing so, I was able to help Kazuto free Asuna and the other victims from Sugou's experiments."

"How could you have done something like that?" Kyouko asked. "I thought you were a counseling program."

"In ALfheim Online," Yui explained, "my data was recognized as a 'Navigation Pixie', which allowed me to avoid notice from players and admins. But more than that, I was able to recognize certain elements that would have escaped Kazuto's notice. The admin-only area where Asuna was contained was hidden behind a nearly-unreachable door under the guise of the game's Grand Quest. Asuna happened to deliver an item corresponding to an admin's privileges to Kazuto, which I was able to use to breach it."

Kyouko nodded. "I see."

Yui turned to her. "My turn," she mused. "Why did you come to ALfheim Online? And why are you using Erika's account?"

"I've been trying to make contact with Asuna," Kyouko explained. "She... hasn't responded to my calls or texts, and it's difficult to approach her in person. She said she'd set up her AmuSphere to automatically log in when she used the NervGear to get my attention - something about not knowing if I could notify her with the NervGear. When everything else failed, I thought... I might as well try this."

"And?" Yui asked. "What do you think?"

Kyouko turned to her. "What?"

"This is Asuna's home," Yui explained. "It was her and Kazuto's home in Sword Art Online, and when it became available in ALfheim Online, she made it our home here, as well. What do you think of it? Of the AmuSphere?"

With a sigh, Kyouko glanced down at her hand. "It's... strange," she admitted, closing and opening her fingers. "Moving a body that's not your own... it's odd. And the sensations..." She picked up her glass again. "I can feel this. I can _taste_ this. But I **know** it's not..."

"It's not what?" Yui demanded. "Not _real?_ If you can feel it and taste it, what makes it any less real?"

Kyouko set her glass down. "I..."

Yui reached forward, seizing Kyouko's free arm - and Kyouko gasped as she felt the girl's grip close around her wrist. "Look," she insisted. "You can feel me. You're _talking_ to me. Are you going to tell me that this feeling isn't real? That **I'm** not real?"

"You're a program." Kyouko couldn't stop herself from saying the words.

Yui's grip tightened abruptly on Kyouko's hand - and Kyouko yelped as she felt the sensation, pressure right against her pulse from Yui's thumbs. "This isn't comfortable, is it?" she demanded. "Is it somehow _more_ comfortable because it's in this world? Does this conversation mean something less just because it's happening in Alfheim? You want to talk to Asuna - are you saying that you _don't_ want to talk to Asuna just because you're wearing an AmuSphere?"

" _Stop!_ "

Kyouko wrenched her arm from Yui's grasp, getting to her feet. Yui let her hands fall, staring up at Kyouko. "What's the difference between your world and a virtual world?"

The words rang familiar; she had asked the same question during their first meeting at Dicey Cafe. After a moment, Kyouko recalled the end of their second meeting - and how Yui had bid farewell.

"The..." She glanced at her hand. "The... quantity of data?"

Yui nodded. "There's a limit to how big the world can be," she proclaimed. "A massive limit - but a limit all the same. The limit in your world is exponentially greater than the limit in this one. That's the **only** meaningful difference between your 'real' world and any virtual world. The experiences don't have any less impact. What you do carries all the same weight."

She got to her feet. "And every player of Sword Art Online knows that. Akihiko Kayaba taught ten thousand people that living your life in a virtual world doesn't mean anything less than living it in the physical world. Nearly four thousand people died in Sword Art Online - and everything they experienced in Aincrad before they died was a **real** experience, right down to fearing for their lives. Kazuto Kirigaya knows that. Asuna Yuuki knows that. They chose to let those experiences continue after they returned to the physical world."

Kyouko watched as she picked up the glasses of drink. "And when people aren't _capable_ of living in the physical world, we make compromises." Her voice had taken on a sorrowful edge. "We interact with the physical world however we can. Some have it better than others. But when people like you tell us that we don't mean anything, that our experiences with other people don't mean anything, that we're not **real** just because we have to live in a virtual world... it hurts. When we want to do something, and we can't, and people think less of us for it, it **hurts**."

She turned to face Kyouko. "Asuna Yuuki took lives in self-defense. She made friends, she found love. She endured abuse at the hands of Nobuyuki Sugou. She watched Yuuki Konno die a slow, painful death from terminal disease. Do you think _any_ of those experiences meant anything less because she experienced them in a virtual world?"

There were no words; Kyouko hung her head, ashamed for having thought as much indeed.

Yui stepped towards the kitchen, setting their drinks next to the sink. "It's almost midnight," she told Kyouko. "I'll show you how to delete a message, and then I'll show you how to log out."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That came out a little more intense than I thought it would.


	9. Vow to Repent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanna make something clear before this chapter. I started this fic because I imagined that a certain event in SAO proper could, possibly, have not gone the way it did. My mind took that possibility and ran with it, and I decided to give it written form. That said, I am GLAD that it -did- happen the way it did in canon. I don't have any complaints about that; I just thought about what might have happened if it didn't. Further, that end result was the best possible way that could have ended; I simply decided to explore an alternative means to reach that end.

When Kyouko woke up, the day after her brief excursion with Asuna's AmuSphere, her phone was alight to tell her she had a voicemail message. Confused, she picked it up, finding it had come from Yui's number, and she promptly hit Play and raised it to her ear.

_"Kyouko Yuuki. I'm going to try and arrange a meeting between you and Asuna. I'll call you tonight, and you can let me know if you're still willing to contact her through ALfheim Online."_

* * *

"Here's to our success!"

Everyone clinked their glasses over the table; Rika had opened her little 'gambling outpost' the previous day, and enough players had flocked to it to make a comfortable profit (needing to rent out the cards and charge for the running dodge had let her turn 'attraction zone' into 'money maker'). She and Keiko had decided to invite everyone who had contributed to a little celebration at Dicey Cafe - Kazuto and Asuna for helping with the card art, Ryoutarou and Suguha for materials support, Andrew for helping with the crafting, and Shino for the approach challenge.

Kazuto shook his head. "I still can't believe you guys went through with that," he admitted, "but I gotta admit I'm glad you didn't regret it."

"Hey," Ryoutarou argued, "as soon as people heard about it, news was going all over. Only problem is that we didn't have a way to announce it outright."

Andrew chuckled. "Who knows," he observed, "maybe the admins will hear about it and decide to implement it officially."

"Um, I don't know if I'd hope for something like that," Shino admitted.

Keiko raised her gaze. "Why not?"

"Well, someone wrote to the GGO admins around the time of the second BoB," Shino explained, "suggesting that they add a new tournament mode. They gave it a small trial, and when people liked it, it became a larger-scale thing."

"So?"

"I don't know if the guy who suggested it got anything out of it."

Rika performed a violent-looking spit-take back into her glass. "What?!"

Suguha hummed. "So, if the admins decide to implement a real gambling house into GGO as a money source..."

"There goes your income," Ryoutarou finished.

The colour seemed to drain out of Rika's face. "No, no, no, no..."

"I'm sure you'll be okay," Asuna insisted. "With the age rating of ALO, that might get them in trouble. If it's something the players do themselves, that's just part of the dangers of online interaction."

"I hope so," Rika murmured.

Keiko changed the subject. "So," she asked, turning to Kazuto, "you guys ever gonna come by?"

"Absolutely not," Kazuto insisted. "And still never with Yui."

"Come on," Ryoutarou argued, "it's not gonna kill her to see the place."

Asuna shook her head. "I am **not** taking my daughter to a casino," she proclaimed.

"You know," Suguha pointed out, "that evasion challenge isn't technically gambling, it's a test of skill."

"The guy with the fastest reflexes in Aincrad is the only player in GGO who made it farther than eight metres," Kazuto pointed out, "and that was _with_ prediction lines to lead the path of the bullet. That thing is as much a 'test of skill' as a duel with Heathcliff."

Andrew raised his gaze. "Didn't Heathcliff say he overclocked his system assist to- Oh," he realized, "oh, I get it."

Keiko shook her head. "At least log in tonight and let me give you guys a deck of cards," she insisted. "You can teach Yui to play solitaire or make a tower or something. Give her something to do while you're at school."

"That's..." Kazuto glanced at Asuna. "Um."

"Yeah," Asuna agreed, "that's a good idea, actually."

"Log in when you guys get back," Rika told them, "and see if you can convince her to stay home without you. Then you can bring her a surprise."

Asuna smiled. "Let's hope."

* * *

When they got home, Yui agreed to wait for Kirito and Asuna at the log house while they went off with intentions to bring her a souvenir - although she would admit to herself that she had a different motive than wanting to be surprised. No sooner had their wings appeared outside than Yui quickly departed from the game; once she stood within her cloud again, she made her way to the call function and dialed Kyouko's number.

It didn't take long for her to pick up. _"Yui?"_

"Are you still willing to speak to Asuna in ALfheim Online?" Yui asked.

 _"...Yes,"_ Kyouko confirmed.

"Then log in right away," Yui instructed her.

_"Alright."_

Kyouko hung up; Yui stepped away from the call function and closed her eyes as the light surrounded her, returning her to Alfheim. Only once she had returned did Yui realized she was still in the form of a Navi-Pixie; she promptly changed back to her proper size as a light from nearby heralded Erika appearing in the living room.

Once she had appeared, Kyouko took a moment to adjust again; then she looked around, finding Yui alone. "What's this?"

"Asuna's left the house," Yui explained, "and will be coming back shortly." She started forward. "I didn't know how long it would take you to log in, so I called you in at the earliest window."

"I thought..." Kyouko sighed as she realized that Asuna wasn't exactly likely to _agree_ to meet with her. "Never mind."

She sat down on the couch, and Yui sat down beside her.

* * *

"Next time, she can bring it to us instead of making us come get it."

"She's the one who offered just a pack of cards! I didn't think she'd still be trying to convince us."

Kirito and Asuna were soaring their way over Floor 22 on their way back from Lisbeth and Silica's gambling outpost, with the cards for Yui in hand. Silica had taken some convincing to _just_ give them the cards, trying to give the couple the full tour of the outpost in an effort to convince them to participate.

"I can't believe they actually managed to make that shooter work," Kirito admitted. "I think that guy was an NPC in GGO, I didn't think you could recreate that with player-made stuff."

Asuna hummed. "Maybe they set it up like a tripwire trap, or something?" she wondered.

They landed outside the log house, and Kirito rolled his shoulders as their wings vanished. "That might be a way to get them off our backs," he mused.

"Sorry?" Asuna asked.

"Ask how it works," Kirito mused. "The only thing we contributed to the place was the card designs, we don't know anything about the workings. If we tell Lisbeth we'll give it a try as long as she tells us how the shooter works..."

Asuna giggled as they stepped up to the front door. "That could do it."

Kirito seized the doorknob and pushed the door open. "Yui, we're home..."

He fell quiet when he saw Yui sitting on the couch - with a Sylph who, after a moment, Kirito recognized as Erika. Asuna stepped in after him and _froze_ ; after a moment, Erika got to her feet.

"...Asuna."

The voice told them exactly who was using Erika's account. "M-Mother?"

Kyouko nodded. "Look, I..."

Asuna turned away, opening her menu in a hurry; her hand was halfway to the logout button when Kirito seized her arm. "Asuna."

"Let me go, Kirito," Asuna muttered.

Her other hand reached forward to hit the button; she was automatically going to the confirmation when Yui stopped it.

"Mama." Her voice was quiet; slowly, Asuna turned to her. "She's willing to listen."

For a moment, Kyouko was concerned that Asuna would turn away this attempt just as she had turned away the others; then Asuna took a deep breath, no longer fighting their grip. Yui released Asuna's hand, giving her the freedom of movement to cancel the logout and then close her menu; Kazuto released her other arm, and Asuna slowly turned around to face her mother.

"What do you want?" Her voice was wrought with anger and sorrow.

Kyouko stepped forward. "I want to tell you I'm sorry." She couldn't keep the sadness out of her voice. "For what I was doing to you. Trying to make you transfer from that school, trying to stop you from spending time with your friends. I didn't realize how much this all means to you. I'm sorry." She shook her head. "I thought this place was just a game, that it was a waste of time for you to be using your AmuSphere when you could be doing so much more... but now I understand."

"You can't try to tell me you understand," Asuna muttered. "You spent so long trying to force me to do things your way, and you think I'll believe you've just changed your mind all of a sudden?!"

Yui set a hand on Asuna's arm. "It wasn't all of a sudden."

"What?"

"Yui's... spoken to me over the past few months," Kyouko explained - and Asuna's expression became one of shock. "She's told me about what you've been through. Sword Art Online. ALfheim Online. The fights, your friends." Tears were trying to well up in her eyes, no matter how hard she tried to fight them. "She made me understand what this world is - what it means to you."

Asuna was starting to tear up, as well. "Mother..."

"I wanted you to have a promising future," Kyouko confessed. "But after seeing what you've been through... I don't want it to come at the cost of all of this. I'm sorry..."

There was a moment more of confrontation; then Asuna stepped forward, putting her arms around Kyouko as the tears flowed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know... I don't think anybody says Klein's RL name in the SAO anime. I gotta give the series a good long watch again sometime. It's been a while.


End file.
